Category Archives: Steve’s Series

Let’s just deal with the first topic today – what delivery model is your MSP using to deliver your managed services? There’s a few choices, and variants thereof:

Dedicated. Your Managed Services Provider (MSP) has a team largely or entirely dedicated to servicing your organisation’s ICT needs. Typically, they’ll co-locate with your organisations’ staff and the operational services will be paid for with a fixed monthly charge.

Shared. Your ICT services are provided by a centralised ICT skill pool. The MSP leverages the central skill pool to service multiple customers’ operational IT needs in parallel. Under the shared model service fees will, again, be generally charged on a fixed monthly basis.

On demand. Also known as consumption-based. Another centralised service model, but this model allows the customer to pay for services used as they need them. Payment models include pre-payment of blocks of service hours, or literally payment of a fee per request.

Combinations of 2 and 3.

There are no absolutes when it comes to the merits of the alternative delivery models: each has pros and cons.

In considering which model will deliver IT services to your organisation most cost-effectively you need to understand your organisation’s specific business and IT needs – financial and other.

In general, though, the unit cost of services delivered using a dedicated service model will be a multiple of that of the other models. So, no absolutes, but here are some considerations:

Scale: increasingly only very large organisations may continue to get the best value from a dedicated ICT delivery model. Advancements in support technologies and increasingly powerful networks mean that many components of ICT services can be very cost-effectively delivered by centralised, shared-service teams using electronic infrastructure monitoring, support and deployment capabilities. Effective support across state and national borders for even large organisations is now demonstrably available.

The move to the Cloud: we’ll talk about selecting alternative platforms later. But, as organisations increasingly adopt Cloud platforms, the relevance and value of dedicated, local support teams diminishes: ICT engineers increasingly don’t need to work in the local data centre or on the customer’s premises. They can deliver cost-effective services from anywhere, and more efficiently.

Flexibility: Businesses are operating in an increasingly dynamic and globalised world, where 12 months is starting to feel like a long time ahead to predict ICT needs. Many businesses need to regularly flex, in terms of their operational activities, to support acquisitions and other business changes made to remain competitive. The shared and on-demand ICT delivery models inherently offer the most flexible and responsive models to support modern businesses, operationally and cost-wise.

By the way, just to be clear, no one’s suggesting that all aspects of IT service delivery can be provided remotely: understanding customer needs requires local interaction. But the core ICT service delivery components increasingly are location-independent.

Stay tuned for the rest of Steve’s Series, published weekly here and on his LinkedIn page.

About Steve Richards, General Manager

Steve is an experienced General Manager with over 35 years’ experience, and a demonstrated history of delivering outcomes. He bring extensive experience to the Frontline Services Executive team, particular in the information technology and services industry, as well as Finance and Oil & Gas. Skilled in Sales Management, Change Management, General Management, Program and Project Management, Steve’s breadth of knowledge makes him a welcome leader for our expanding team.

View the full series:

In Part 1 we discussed: what delivery model is your managed services provider (MSP) using? Dedicated, shared,on-demand? The dedicated delivery model will cost you a multiple of the other, leveraged, models, potentially 2 to 3 times, but may still best suit some organisations. All delivery models offer different sets of pros and cons, but the need for core managed services to be delivered locally is diminishing.

Next, let’s talk about a key MSP behaviour that determines the value-add they bring to your organisation, by asking: how often does your MSP initiate improvements and innovations to drive down your ICT service costs or to deliver a better bang for your buck?

This will really test your MSP’s alignment with your business and their commitment to a long-term relationship. Many see this as a dilemma for MSP’s – after all, doesn’t driving down your ICT costs, or giving more for the same dollar conflict with an MSP’s financial objectives? Most companies want to at least maintain their revenues, and an expectation of growth by their shareholders is never far away: revenue (and margin!) is king. This is particularly challenging for listed MSP’s.

Yet most organisations that engage MSP’s want and need them to bring the benefits of their engagements across their client base to add value. Organisations often have some unique ICT needs, but many ICT needs are common across organisations, geographies and industry sectors. There’s a real win-win opportunity for MSP’s to proactively bring ideas, innovations and / or lessons learned to their clients: project revenues for the MSP, technology or system investment ROI for the client.

What sorts of improvements or innovations are we talking about? It could be anything. For example:

You should expect your MSP to exploit modern technologies and platforms to improve end-user experience, delivery costs, security or other service dimension.

And at the operational, service desk level, you should see cost and/or service improvements as their knowledge base of your ICT environment expands over time.

Hopefully you’re seeing one or more of these benefits from your MSP. If you’re not you need to ask your MSP some hard questions. Or renegotiate your contract. Or think again.

A trusted advisor, that lives and breathes the MSP world, to help you with this challenge is well worth considering. Hello!

Stay tuned for the rest of Steve’s Series, published weekly here and on his LinkedIn page.

About Steve Richards, General Manager

Steve is an experienced General Manager with over 35 years’ experience, and a demonstrated history of delivering outcomes. He bring extensive experience to the Frontline Services Executive team, particular in the information technology and services industry, as well as Finance and Oil & Gas. Skilled in Sales Management, Change Management, General Management, Program and Project Management, Steve’s breadth of knowledge makes him a welcome leader for our expanding team.

View the full series:

How do you know if your ICT managed services contract is delivering the best available value for your organisation?

In Part 1 we discussed: what delivery model is your managed services provider (MSP) using? Dedicated, shared, on-demand? The dedicated delivery model will cost you a multiple of the other, leveraged, models, potentially 2 to 3 times, but may still best suit some organisations. All delivery models offer different sets of pros and cons, but the need for core managed services to be delivered locally, and with that, dedicated services, is diminishing.

Part 2 dealt with improvements and innovations your MSP is proactively bringing to your organisation. You should expect your MSP to optimally exploit modern technologies and platforms, to apply lessons learned from previous, similar project delivery experiences, and, at the operational, service desk level, you should see cost and/or service improvements as their knowledge base of your ICT environment expands over time. If you’re not seeing these benefits you really need to think hard about your current managed services contract.

Next, as an extension of Part 2, let’s talk specifically about whether your MSP is helping your organisation optimally exploit the alternative application, compute and storage platforms: data centre, on premise and cloud.

First, let’s establish a key point – there is no “one size fits all”.

The optimum use of these platforms is completely dependent on the characteristics of your organisation’s business operations and internal processes and data. So, the notion of “everything’s going to the cloud” is highly debatable, despite the many advantages of cloud platforms.

Some organisations’ data is so sensitive that going to the cloud means too much risk, perceived or real. In other cases, it’s nothing to do with data sensitivity. For example, if you’re an organisation with remote operations and a lot of production data (e.g. a remote mine site, or an offshore oil platform), where the available, affordable telecommunications bandwidth is limited, it makes little sense to try pumping your data up into (and getting back down from) the cloud – it’s neither practical nor economical.

But the point here is that, by now, if you’re not an organisation constrained by data sovereignty issues, your MSP should have no excuse whatsoever to not having taken a good hard look at optimising the mix of application, compute and storage cloud / on-premise / data centre platforms for your organisation. After all, the notion and availability of cloud computing is at least a decade or more, old – depending on which ICT industry gurus / vendors you give credit to.

If your MSP hasn’t yet seriously explored the options for you, and, hopefully, worked to migrate you wholly or partly out of the data centre and / or your premises, you are paying too much for your ICT. Potentially a great deal too much.

You’re also not optimally positioned to cope with your organisation’s changing business needs. If this is the case, you need to ask your MSP why.

Frontline Services lives and breathes IT platform optimisation, both in advising organisations about their optimum ICT architecture, and well as in delivering managed services for clients. If you want help with this topic, feel free to contact us via www.frontline-services.com.au .

Stay tuned for the rest of Steve’s Series, published weekly here and on his LinkedIn page.

About Steve Richards, General Manager

Steve is an experienced General Manager with over 35 years’ experience, and a demonstrated history of delivering outcomes. He bring extensive experience to the Frontline Services Executive team, particular in the information technology and services industry, as well as Finance and Oil & Gas. Skilled in Sales Management, Change Management, General Management, Program and Project Management, Steve’s breadth of knowledge makes him a welcome leader for our expanding team.

Part 2 dealt with improvements and innovations your MSP is proactively bringing to your organisation.

Then we talked about whether your MSP is helping your organisation optimally exploit the alternative application, compute and storage platforms: data centre, on premise and cloud.

Now let’s move on to cover the way your MSP engages strategically, tactically and operationally with your organisation. The key question is “how often does your MSP engage with you to understand your business objectives, strategy, challenges and opportunities?”.

There’s no one correct answer to this question, because it depends on each organisation’s preferences, needs and environment.

But in the connected, networked, online world, ICT is more than ever an essential resource for many organisations. More services and products are being procured and delivered online, both B2B and B2C. Organisations’ online, digital presence is now their “front door” to the world, their prospective and current customers, partners, their staff and all their stakeholders.

So, it makes a lot of sense to ensure that your MSP is tuned into your organisation’s business plans and priorities, so they can add maximum value from an ICT perspective.

Ideally, your MSP is proactive in this regard; at an operational level you should be engaging regularly to review services and maintain at least a 90-day outlook of your business priorities and the ICT projects in the pipeline.

A strategic and / or tactical level engagement process also makes sense: business and industry changes, threats and opportunities are appearing at an increasing pace, as are technology choices, features and benefits. So, ensuring that your MSP is appropriately aware of your 12+ month horizon plans and priorities is beneficial to both parties. You should expect your MSP to proactively respond with proposals and a roadmap to drive ICT investments.

Just one other, closing point. If your MSP genuinely seeks a long-term relationship focused on your organisation’s business outcome then you should expect them to give you impartial advice on technology investments. This can be a dilemma for some MSP’s: many derive significant revenues from re-selling hardware, software and platform services, and will incentivise their representatives accordingly. But not all MSP’s actively pursue reseller revenues – something you should consider when selecting your MSP.

Frontline Services provides impartial “CIO as a service” advice to our clients, including ICT planning, product and services selection, and procurement. If you want help with these or other ICT topics, please contact us via www.frontline-services.com.au .

Stay tuned for the rest of Steve’s Series, published weekly here and on his LinkedIn page.

About Steve Richards, General Manager

Steve is an experienced General Manager with over 35 years’ experience, and a demonstrated history of delivering outcomes. He bring extensive experience to the Frontline Services Executive team, particular in the information technology and services industry, as well as Finance and Oil & Gas. Skilled in Sales Management, Change Management, General Management, Program and Project Management, Steve’s breadth of knowledge makes him a welcome leader for our expanding team.

Part 2 dealt with improvements and innovations your MSP is proactively bringing to your organisation.

Then we talked about whether your MSP is helping your organisation optimally exploit the alternative application, compute and storage platforms: data centre, on premise and cloud.

Last week we dealt with: how often does your MSP engage with you to understand your business objectives, strategy, challenges and opportunities?

So, in this final piece of this topic let’s delve into an infrequently talked about, but key, determinant of MSP value:

Are your MSP’s operational staff engaged with your staff, day to day and demonstrating high motivation and commitment to achieving your goals?

This is a more intangible, and multi-dimensional, topic, but real nevertheless. The Situational Leadership model shows that two fundamental people performance dimensions determine team effectiveness: motivation and capability. Organisations need their own people to be both motivated to, and capable of (as in having the skills and, ideally, experience), delivering the outcomes they’re employed for.

Where you’ve outsourced your ICT managed services then the same needs to be true of your MSP’s staff. Their managers and staff need to be high-performing at the ground level if you’re going to get the value you’re paying for.

So how can you assess this? Day to day, general, observation is the most direct way.

Do the MSP staff demonstrate a sense of urgency and do what they say they’re going to?

Do they listen effectively?

Do they show passion to help you and regularly go the extra mile to get things done?

Do they demonstrate a knowledge of your organisation when problem solving?

Do they convey empathy and look for alternative options to problem-solve?

Do they communicate regularly and openly – accepting responsibility when things don’t go right (versus finger-pointing elsewhere) – but then remain focused on getting the right outcome?

Do they diplomatically, but firmly, explain when your organisation has some responsibility, and then promote collaboration to get the outcomes you want?

On the topic of capability, how often is re-work needed?

Do outcomes generally happen when you expect them to?

Or, more simply, do they generally seem to know what they’re doing?

There’s a second way to assess MSP engagement in terms of motivation and capability. Look at what their own employees say about them. Sites like SEEK and Glassdoor publish this information. This can give you insights into the mood of the company and staff, and what’s really going on inside the MSP. But a word of caution – employee reviews on such sites are typically anonymous. So, like other types of online review sites, anyone with an email address can post comments, with no doubt, editorial vetting by the sites. You need to make your own mind up whether the comments are objective or, possibly, someone with another agenda – positive or negative.

Frontline Services provides impartial CIO as a service advice to our clients, including ICT planning, product and services selection, and procurement. If you want help with these or other, please contact us.

Stay tuned for the rest of Steve’s Series, published weekly here and on his LinkedIn page.

About Steve Richards, General Manager

Steve is an experienced General Manager with over 35 years’ experience, and a demonstrated history of delivering outcomes. He bring extensive experience to the Frontline Services Executive team, particular in the information technology and services industry, as well as Finance and Oil & Gas. Skilled in Sales Management, Change Management, General Management, Program and Project Management, Steve’s breadth of knowledge makes him a welcome leader for our expanding team.